"I hate those things."
"I don't get why some people like them… I mean if you want a mini dog at least peak something that looks like one, right?"
"Can we focus in the next fight?"
There was something that bothered me.
Usually, in those types of scenario, I would have noticed something or at least know of the danger, but that didn't happen this time. I should have noticed, but somehow that demonic beast sneaked up on us without anyone noticing it.
I took a last look at the shards and guided the party forward with that feeling still on me.
Rose went into the Astral Realm. Even if she was not the main attacker, she could ambush and go in and out of reality so she could safely attack and retreat(training courtesy of paws… is really annoying to fight back.
About Hayley's shatter… that thing is scary.
'Spence, we are surrounded.'
'What?'
'The sewers under us are filled with red-eyed rats, and there are pigeons on the roofs.'
It wasn't until Rose told me about the pigeons that I notice them. First the chihuahua and now this? Having her and Dante feeding me information together with my sixth sense has made me careless.
"Get ready to fight we are surrounded."
I moved to the rear to protect them while Gerhard and Warmachine Hope were on the front. Hayley was safe in the middle of the formation. I looked around trying to figure out the place from where the rats will come out.
I saw a sewer cap "jump" in the air as a group of rats left the sewers and charged towards us. At that moment the pigeons left the roofs and dived toward us at high speed.
'Chaotic Zone…'
An area where the space-time is randomly distorted. I can't completely control its effects, but I can choose not to affect my party.
This space was weird, some areas were accelerated, slowed, some have spatial locks, and if you touch them, you can't move for a while. There are also some random teleportation places, but I can move the target place, so they don't crush onto us, this was a really fearful ability.
A pigeon just smashes into the floor, a group of rats started to go against the flow as they don't get where to go. Rats locked in the middle of the flock, areas advancing faster just to crush into a slower area. There was no way to control the waves of fo rats.
Scenes like this kept repeating as the beast entered the area, going into chaos before the battle even started.
Hayley and Hope didn't waste time either. Hope started to float higher and higher with the rings, and the weapons spinning around her faster and faster. In the meantime, Hayley showed us why she was the strongest of us all when she froze the stream of rats sealing the entrance of the sewers.
[Congratulation for killing an F-Rank Beast, 10 EP awarded]
[Party Member Hayley Killed an F-Rank Beast, 5 EP rewarded]
[Party Member Hayley Killed an E-Rank Beast, 13 EP rewarded]
[Party Member Hope Killed an F-Rank Beast, 5 EP rewarded]
[Party Member Hayley Killed an F-Rank Beast, 5 EP rewarded]
…
The notifications kept streaming, so I silenced the killing feed. After the update, the amount of EP rewarded for each kill was increased, and I also get half the EP for the kill that my allies do.
While Hope and Hayley worked hard on their task, Gerhard was focused on finding the crocozard. Rose already told us she sees it and should appear soon in the front.
About the remains of the hunting team, they were nowhere to be found. The chances of finding them alive were low from the beginning, but there was a part of me that wanted to find them and Rose's cleanse to work.
It didn't matter. A second and a third sewer cap exploded as the rats kept appearing together with the red-eyed and half-spoiled crocozard. Come on Pinky, how many rats did you lose here?!?!
The rotten smell came onto me, and it was when I noticed that some of these tainted-beasts were missing body parts…
Noticing something like that in a stream of red-eyed rats was difficult, even if there is a missing limb there might be other reason for it but seeing it more carefully, a rat had the eye out of its place, a pigeon that had a leg hanging on just a thread of meat. It was suspicious.
None of this beast survives the "corruption"… they were literally rotting.
I didn't have time to ponder about how did this happen, but the most accurate way to call these beasts were undead.
The crocozard wasn't as big as some other beast that we fought before but compared to us normal humans still was big it might look the same size as G when it crawls, but it was least 20 meters long.
There were missing parts of the skin in multiple areas, and the scales looked hard yet might fall at any moment.
The battle was about to get to its climax… our it should have been like that if the supporting beasts would be able to do something against Hayley and Hope, who was like a meat grinder. I already lost the count of the times that I was almost sprayed with blood from those poor beasts.
Usually, I wouldn't care about it but this time there was something weird and unless I know for sure that it will have no effect on us I don't plan to touch that blood. Because of this, she was fighting a little farther away from us.
In the meant time G decided to take a stupid approach on his fight and went head-on using his halberd against the crocozard's head. Obviously he was knocked back a couple of meters after the hit, but it worked to attract his attention…
Since he was busy getting back in his feet and the crocozard seemed to be focused on him I went for its flank looking for a weakness. Because of the size, the random spatial lock could affect the crocozard at his current level, the same with the random teleportation.
A large spear appeared again on my hands as I charged towards the beast.
I blinked to appeared near its head and thrust the spear towards the eye. At the time that the spear was going forward, the length of the spear changed. The attack was made from a distance where there was no chance to counter, but at the same time, it was too far to reach. With the length of the spear increased, the ambush was successful as the spearhead went into the eye of the crocozard.
I took the bottom of the shaft and pushed it further into the head, and this provoked even more writhings of pain. I was out of the crocodile reach, so it tried to pursue me without any chance of succeeding. The spear kept lengthening, but I found some resistance for going further inside.
The crocozard on his despair tried to leave, but in this place, it had no chances of escaping. The spearhead was already deep into the head, and the shaft acted as both a bridge and a tool to keep my distance. The crocozard was so focused on me that it didn't notice when G jumped on top of it ready to crush through the skin with the halberd.
The Light moved to his legs in the moment of his jump, and back to his arms as he crushed the head using the flat side of the halberd.
*Crack*
Something was broken inside the crocozard's head, but being an undead breaking a couple bones wasn't that effective. From popular knowledge, I had some ideas in my mind.
Plan A destroy its brain, Plan… A.2 decapitate, Plan B burn it… that is going to always be Plan B.
I took a deep breath while this happened and focused on the spear…
Without letting the spear leave the eye socket I retracted it a little I concentrate on the tip of the spear, it was something that I tried during training before and just managed to do it once. I got ready and pushed the spear back using my full power. This time part of the resistance was broken, and it went inside smoothly.
Infusing space element didn't work as I wanted but thanks to G, I was able to break through and get to the brain anyway.
Apparently, Plan A was enough.
[Congratulations the User for killing an E-Rank Beast, 25 EP Rewarded]
[Mission: Find and eliminate the corrupted beasts (1/5).
Type: Chain (3/3)
Reward: 50 System points, 1AP, 2 SP (Per kill) (1/5)
Time Limit: 19d 15h 36m 23s]
…
I looked at the notification for a while
"OH CR*P!!!"
G looked at me.
"What?!!"
"I didn't get the notification for killing the Chihuahua!"